Articulate Storyline: Adding Buttons

by Kevin Siegel   

 

Buttons are the most common form of interactivity that you'll find in just about any Storyline project. Using Triggers, you can control what happens should the learner successfully click a button (such as Go to the next slide or Show Layers).

Over the next few weeks I'm going to teach you how easy it is to add buttons to any Storyline slide, how to add Triggers, and how to control Button states.

Add a Button to a Slide

1. Open or create a Storyline project and then open a slide.
2. Select the Insert tab on the Ribbon.
3. From the Interactive Objects group, select Controls and then select Button 1.
   
    
   
4. Draw a button on the slide as you would any shape.
   

Label and Name a Button

1. With the button you just drew selected, label the button by typing directly into the button. (The text should be short and sweet and clearly indicate the button's action to the learner.)
   
2. On the Timeline, double-click the name Button1 and give the button a common-sense name. (In the image below, I'm working on a slide containing multiple buttons. Each has been labeled and named.)
   
   
   The Label will be seen by your learners when they work through your lesson. The Name is never seen by the learner and serves as a development tool for you when you begin working with Triggers. 
   
   Note: If you are not happy with the appearance of the button, you can always change the way a button looks just like any other shape in Storyline.

Add a Trigger to a Button

When you add a button to a slide, it's begging to do something... anything. You can add a Trigger to a button easily via the Triggers panel. The Trigger can result in any number of actions. For instance, a Trigger can jump a learner to a different slide, open a web page, show or hide a layer, or change the state of an object.

1. On the Triggers panel, click Create a new trigger to open the Trigger Wizard.
   
2. From within the Trigger Wizard, select the desired options. In the image below, I wanted a Continue button that I added to the slide to take the learner to the next slide when the button is clicked. I selected Jump to slide as the Action, next slide as the Slide, User clicks for When, and the slide's Continue button as the Object.
   
   If you're thinking that the Trigger Wizard looks overly simplistic based on the image above, you'd be correct. However, looks are often very deceiving in Storyline. As you experiment with different actions from the Actions drop-down menu, I think you'll be surprised by how much the options in the Trigger Wizard change to support the selected Action. The Wizard is actually very flexible and powerful and allows you to create some very complex interactions.

Next time: Button States. 

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If you'd like to learn more about eLearning, come hang out in my next eLearning basics mini course. And if you'd like to learn more Captivate, Presenter, or Storyline, we've got a great collection of live, online classes for you.